Comparative analysis of permanent post-disaster houses constructed in Çankırı and Dinar

A major challenge after an earthquake is how to establish a new residential area of a similar or even improved standard for people who have suffered psychological, social and economic impacts and witnessed significant damage to the physical environment. As part of a research project conducted in 2005 and 2008, questionnaires were administered to the permanent occupiers of post‐disaster houses in the Turkish cities of Çank?r? and Dinar. They were asked to compare the comfort levels and other characteristics of the houses in which they now reside with those of the traditional houses in which they used to live. The survey revealed that such aspects do not differ between the two types of accommodation. However, differences were identified between the two areas under review (Çank?r? and Dinar). In addition, average scores for traditional houses were higher than those for post‐disaster houses in both places.     

Minimization of socioeconomic disruption for displaced populations following disasters

In the aftermath of catastrophic natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, emergency management agencies come under intense pressure to provide temporary housing to address the large‐scale displacement of the vulnerable population. Temporary housing is essential to enable displaced families to reestablish their normal daily activities until permanent housing solutions can be provided. Temporary housing decisions, however, have often been criticized for their failure to fulfil the socioeconomic needs of the displaced families within acceptable budgets. This paper presents the development of (1) socioeconomic disruption metrics that are capable of quantifying the socioeconomic impacts of temporary housing decisions on displaced populations; and (2) a robust multi‐objective optimization model for temporary housing that is capable of simultaneously minimizing socioeconomic disruptions and public expenditures in an effective and efficient manner. A large‐scale application example is optimized to illustrate the use of the model and demonstrate its capabilities ingenerating optimal plans for realistic temporary housing problems.     

Attrition and housing improvements: A study of post-disaster housing after three years

This research is part of an effort to monitor houses built for victims of hurricane Fifi in 1975. After 3 years (1978) we interviewed the residents to determine the rate of continued occupancy and the amount of housing improvement and the correlates of both. We found that a significant number of small families, Protestants, and families that had not participated in the construction of the housing had moved. From what we could determine, moving was primarily related to seeking work and improving one's financial position.
Nearly 90% of the permanent occupants had improved their houses with either indigenous or manufactured materials. Non-improvement of houses was concentrated among families with few members. The largest number of unimproved houses was located in the project that sewed the poorest victims and contained the cheapest housing.     

Maximising the net social benefit of the construction of post‐disaster alternative housing projects

The widespread destruction that follows large‐scale natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, challenges the efficacy of traditional temporary housing methods in providing adequate solutions to housing needs. Recognising these housing challenges, the Congress of the United States allocated, in 2006, USD 400 million to the Department of Homeland Security to support Alternative Housing Pilot Programs, which are intended to explore the possibilities of providing permanent and affordable housing to displaced families instead of traditional temporary housing. This paper presents a new methodology and optimisation model to identify the optimal configurations of post‐shelter housing arrangements to maximise the overall net socioeconomic benefit. The model is capable of quantifying and optimising the impacts of substituting temporary housing with alternative housing on the social and economic welfare of displaced families as well as the required additional costs of doing so. An application example is presented to illustrate the use of the model and its capabilities.     

Putting houses in place:1 rebuilding communities in post‐tsunami Sri Lanka

This paper interrogates the social and political geographies of resettlement and reconstruction of temporary and permanent shelters, which are fundamental to rebuilding tsunami‐affected communities. War and ethnic cleavages are an endemic feature of Sri Lanka's social polity, and uneven development processes in the country are clearly visible. This paper draws attention to these spaces of inequality by drawing on in‐depth interviews and participant observation carried out in Eastern and Southern Sri Lanka. It argues that communities' concerns and anxieties regarding displacement and resettlement have tended to be articulated against prevailing fault lines of war and inequality. This is the backdrop against which communities negotiated the recovery process. My fieldwork shows that it is critical to understand that disaster and development relief are ingrained within context specificities. Relief efforts therefore need to recognise that the process of ‘putting houses in place’ should be embedded within local social relations.     

Rural residents and choice of building earthquake-resistant house: results of a choice experiment study

Rural settlements, especially in developing countries, are disproportionally vulnerable to natural hazards due to both biophysical and social vulnerability. Building hazard-resistant houses requires a thorough understanding of hazards and institutional and financial resources. However, it is equally important for planners and policymakers to know how rural residents make the tradeoff between various housing attributes when provided with the resources such as low-interest housing construction loans. In this study, we use a choice experiment (CE) to examine rural households' preference for earthquake resistance when building houses. A total of 300 households from randomly selected villages in central districts of Guilan Province in Iran were recruited for a CE study in which they had to choose between a number of houses that differed in terms of the required construction loan, resistance to earthquakes, size, and exterior and interior designs. Our results show that the average resident preferred larger houses with better exterior and interior designs to more earthquake-resistant houses, and is willing to spend more on these attributes than earthquake safety. These results indicate that rural households are willing to receive loans to improve their houses but that this does not translate into more earthquake-resistant houses.     

Measuring disaster recovery: bouncing back or reaching the counterfactual state?

How should one measure the recovery of a locale from a disaster? The measurement is crucial from a public policy and administration standpoint to determine which places should receive disaster assistance, and it affects the performance evaluation of disaster recovery programmes. This paper compares two approaches to measuring recovery: (i) bouncing back to pre‐disaster conditions; and (ii) attaining the counterfactual state. The former centres on returning to normalcy following disaster‐induced losses, whereas the latter focuses on attaining the state, using quasi‐experimental design, which would have existed if the disaster had not occurred. Both are employed here to assess two housing recovery indicators (total new units and their valuations) in Hurricane Katrina‐affected counties (rural and urban). The examination reveals significantly different outcomes for the two approaches: counties have not returned to their pre‐disaster housing conditions, but they do exhibit counterfactual recovery. Moreover, rural counties may not be as vulnerable as assumed in the disaster recovery literature.     

Towards guidelines for post‐disaster vulnerability reduction in informal settlements

Although the development community has long recognised that securing land tenure and improving housing design can benefit significantly informal settlement residents, there is little research on these issues in communities exposed to natural disasters and hazards. Informal settlements often are located on land left vacant because of inherent risks, such as floodplains, and there is a long history worldwide of disasters affecting informal settlements. This research tackles the following questions: how can informal settlement vulnerabilities be reduced in a post‐disaster setting?; and what are the key issues to address in post‐disaster reconstruction? The main purpose of the paper is to develop a set of initial guidelines for post‐disaster risk reduction in informal settlements, stressing connections to tenure and housing/community design in the reconstruction process. The paper examines disaster and reconstruction responses in two disaster‐affected regions—Jimani, Dominican Republic, and Vargas State, Venezuela—where informal settlements have been hit particularly hard.     

Urban disaster recovery: a measurement framework and its application to the 1995 Kobe earthquake

This paper provides a framework for assessing empirical patterns of urban disaster recovery through the use of statistical indicators. Such a framework is needed to develop systematic knowledge on how cities recover from disasters. The proposed framework addresses such issues as defining recovery, filtering out exogenous influences unrelated to the disaster, and making comparisons across disparate areas or events. It is applied to document how Kobe City, Japan, recovered from the catastrophic 1995 earthquake. Findings indicate that while aggregate population regained pre‐disaster levels in ten years, population had shifted away from the older urban core. Economic recovery was characterised by a three to four year temporary boost in reconstruction activities, followed by settlement at a level some ten per cent below pre‐disaster levels. Other long‐term effects included substantial losses of port activity and sectoral shifts toward services and large businesses. These patterns of change and disparity generally accelerated pre‐disaster trends.     

‘Schismo‐urbanism’: cities,natural disaster,and urban sociology

This paper examines a city and a natural disaster, specifically New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina of August 2005. Recovery here is ongoing and the process of return is incomplete, with long‐term dislocation to other cities in the United States, such as Houston, Texas. The question arises as to how planning and stratification influence evacuation and return/dislocation and how they result in a particular practice of adaptation. This interrelated process is conceptually integrated and termed ‘schismo‐urbanism’ and is analysed within a multidimensional theoretical framework to evaluate aspects of urban sociology and natural disasters. Empirical research is based on a quantitative and qualitative mixed‐method case study. Data were collected during two rounds of field research in New Orleans and Houston in 2007 and 2009. As a comparative socio‐spatial study of affected and receptor communities, it makes a novel theoretical and methodological contribution to research on urban disasters in the context of continuing and rapid social change, and is targeted at disaster researchers, planning theorists and practitioners, and urbanists.     

Vulnerability of community businesses to environmental disasters

Business plays important roles in community functioning. ² However, disaster research has been disproportionately focused on units of analysis such as families, households and government agencies. This paper synthesises the major findings within the business development research field and the disaster research field. It constructs a framework for evaluating business vulnerability to natural disasters. Our theoretical integration of the research conducted to date addresses five major issues. First, it defines the ways in which businesses are subject to the impacts of natural disasters. Second, it identifies the factors that determine the magnitude of business impacts after a disaster. Third, it identifies how and when businesses return to their pre-disaster level in the disaster stricken community. Fourth, it describes measures that can be taken by individual firms and community planners to reduce the impacts of environmental disasters. Fifth, it identifies needs for public policy and future research to reduce business vulnerability to environmental disasters.     

Displacement as a predictor of functional impairment in tsunami‐exposed children

Thirty months after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, thousands of families in Aceh Province, Indonesia, remained in temporary barracks while sanitation conditions and non‐governmental organisation support deteriorated. This study sought to determine the factors associated with functional impairment in a sample of 138 displaced and non‐displaced Acehnese children. Using multivariate linear regression models, it was found that displacement distance was a consistent predictor of impairment using the Brief Impairment Scale. Exposure to tsunami‐related trauma markers was not significantly linked with impairment in the model. Paternal employment was a consistent protective factor for child functioning. These findings suggest that post‐disaster displacement and the subsequent familial economic disruption are significant predictors of impaired functioning in children's daily activities. Post‐disaster interventions should consider the disruption of familiar environments for families and children when relocating vulnerable populations to avoid deleterious impacts on children's functioning.     

Assessing non‐metro recovery across two continents: issues and limitations

Rural and remote areas of countries such as Australia and the United States are less well‐resourced and often poorer than their city counterparts. When a disaster strikes, therefore, their long‐term recovery can be impeded by being situated ‘over the horizon'. Nonetheless, they are likely to enjoy higher social capital, with ‘locals’ banding together to help restore economic and social life in the wake of a calamitous incident. At the same time, a repeat of extreme events, springing in part from alteration to the landscape through intense human occupation, threatens to derail sustainable recovery processes everywhere, suggesting that renewed emphasis needs to be placed on preparedness. Improved metrics are also required, spanning both pre‐ and post‐disaster phases, to determine effectiveness. Moreover, a focus on the ‘hardening’ of towns offers a better return in limiting damage and potentially hastens the speed of recovery should these places later fall victim to extreme events.     

Female adolescents and their sexuality: notions of honour, shame, purity and pollution during the floods

This paper explores the experiences of female adolescents during the 1998 floods in Bangladesh, focusing on the implications of socio-cultural norms related to notions of honour, shame, purity and pollution. These cultural notions are reinforced with greater emphasis as girls enter their adolescence, regulating their sexuality and gender relationships. In Bangladeshi society, adolescent girls are expected to maintain their virginity until marriage. Contact is limited to one's family and extended relations. Particularly among poorer families, adolescent girls tend to have limited mobility to safeguard their 'purity'. This is to ensure that the girl's reputation does not suffer, thus making it difficult for the girl to get married. For female adolescents in Bangladesh, a disaster situation is a uniquely vulnerable time. Exposure to the unfamiliar environment of flood shelters and relief camps, and unable to maintain their 'space' and privacy from male strangers, a number of the girls were vulnerable to sexual and mental harassment. With the floods, it became difficult for most of the girls to be appropriately 'secluded'. Many were unable to sleep, bathe or get access to latrines in privacy because so many houses and latrines were under the water. Some of the girls who had begun menstruation were distressed at not being able to keep themselves clean. Strong social taboos associated with menstruation and the dirty water that surrounded them made it difficult for the girls to wash their menstrual cloths or change them frequently enough. Many of them became separated from their social network of relations, which caused them a great deal of anxiety and stress. Their difficulty in trying to follow social norms have had far-reaching implications on their health, identity, family and community relations.     

Housing anxiety and multiple geographies in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

Tsunami intervention has been an extraordinary and unprecedented relief and recovery operation. This article underlines the complexities posed by shelter and housing intervention in post-tsunami Sri Lanka, revealing a pragmatic, reductionist approach to shelter and housing reconstruction in a contested and fragmented environment. Competition, housing anxiety and buffer zone implementation have resulted in compulsory villagisation inland, stirring feelings of discrimination and tension, and becoming major obstacles to equitable rebuilding of houses and livelihoods. A new tsunami geography has been imposed on an already vulnerable conflict-based geography, in which shelter has been conceived as a mono-dimensional artefact. An analysis of the process and outcomes of temporary and permanent post-tsunami housing programmes yields information about the extent to which shelter policies and programmes serve not only physical needs but 'higher order' objectives for a comprehensive and sustainable recovery plan.     

General and particular observations on sheltering and housing in American disasters

After a survey of all the English language social science literature and a review of several case histories, the Disaster Research Center compiled a number of observations on sheltering and housing following sudden onset disasters which are summarized here. The study is aimed at increasing our knowledge of American peace-time disasters. The four different phases: emergency and temporary sheltering and emergency and temporary housing are defined and discussed. There seems to be little disaster planning and often the co-ordination of relief efforts is inefficient. It appears that communities could be better informed and that more research is necessary in order to understand and evaluate these phenomena properly. The paper points to areas which could be usefully investigated.     

中国农村地震灾害特点及减灾对策

致灾因子强度和承灾体的脆弱性共同决定了灾情的大小.中国农村乡镇发生地震的概率远远高于大中城市,西藏、新疆、云南、宁夏、青海、甘肃等西部农村乡镇是我国地震灾害最为严重的地区.地震灾害对农村乡镇造成的损失,主要是农村居民住房的破坏,约占总损失的80%以上;其它的20%损失中,又以农村水利工程的破坏损失为主.目前我国农村乡镇居民的住房仍以抗震性能较差的土木、砖木结构为主,开展农村住房地震保险、农村低息住房贷款并加强农村建房的监督管理,是降低农村地震风险、减轻农村地震灾害损失的主要对策.     

浙江省沿海地区农村房屋抗风情况调研

对浙江省沿海地区的农村房屋抗风情况进行了调研,总结了被破坏房屋的主要结构特点。在对现有房屋的统计中发现相对不富裕地区高达60%以上的房屋属于抗风能力差和较差的,而一些比较富裕且受过台风袭击有过惨痛教训地区的房屋抗风能力差和较差的仅在20%以下。进一步研究发现抗风能力较好的房屋大都是建造年代不久,多为混凝土现浇板屋盖,上部多为框架或砖混结构,而抗风能力较差和差的大都为建造年代已久,多为小青瓦屋面,上部结构多为砖木结构或构造措施较差的砖混结构。同时对当地村民传统的"砖头压瓦"防护措施进行理论验算,得出当风速超过台风界限风速时,屋面上的砖头将会飞起,该措施应该避免。     

Strategic planning for post-disaster temporary housing

Temporary housing programmes suffer from excessively high cost, late delivery, poor location, improper unit designs and other inherent issues. These issues can be attributed in part to a prevalence of ad hoc tactical planning, rather than pre-disaster strategic planning, for reconstruction undertaken by governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the chaotic post-disaster environment. An analysis of the process and outcomes from six case studies of temporary housing programmes after disasters in Turkey and Colombia in 1999, Japan in 1995, Greece in 1986, Mexico in 1985, and Italy in 1976 yields information about the extent to which strategic planning is employed in temporary housing programmes, as well as common issues in temporary housing. Based on an understanding of these common issues, this paper proposes a framework for strategic planning for temporary housing that identifies organisational designs and available resources for temporary housing before the disaster, but allows modifications to fit the specific post-disaster situation.     

紧急救援中公共建筑的伦理学

灾害评估将房屋分成框架结构和混合结构、砖木结构和土坯结构来评定损失.防震减灾中,除了上述分类外,更重要的是要考虑到"房屋-人"是一种相互不可分割的系统工程.房屋不仅仅是由砖石和水泥组成的,它同时是有"情感"的:人对房屋好一点,房屋就会对主人有报答.不少农村医院、学校等公共建筑,由于设计标准低、施工中存在偷工减料的现象,已经存在着隐患,只是在建造初期没有暴露出来.有了地震这一外力,加剧了矛盾,由"小患"变成了"大害".应当"以人为本",建议新建的建筑物应在当地基本烈度的基础上提高1度进行设计;对危旧房屋的改造,也应按在当地基本烈度的基础上加1度进行加固.可以分两步走:第一步,先加强地震多发地区的公共建筑,大约在全国有百余个县;第二步,在全国推广.